The fourth week as expected is really intensive in terms of discussions and task. I feel that these weeks serve as preparatory to complete our project task and thus gathering enough theoretical and practical basis for doing this.
This week are discussing about usefulness of some multi-skills sites in improving our students language skills.
After reading the two articles http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Krajka-WritingUsingNet.html and http://iteslj.org/Lessons/Liang-ExtensiveReading.html
I found many interesting ideas of how to implement CALL in teaching writing and vocabulary development.
The authour of the first article Karjka (2000) gives the overview of previously done research and some very practical suggestions that makes this reading some kind of guide for the teachers who have just started to think of CALL integration into their teaching curriculum. To be honest, after visiting the websites, the links my coursemates suggest, I am myself eager to use only tehcnology enhanced lesson plans with my students. The great amount of sourse and step- by - step lesson plans with variety of tasks and activities would make my teaching more motivating, live and not least important up-to-date.
Another thing worth to mention is the posting and professional discussion that is held in our interactive classroom. It is so vivid how all coursemates are trying to share everything they find useful and applicable, providing their reflections, explanation and answering questions. This is a very good professional virtual environment that stimulates thinking and analyzing skills being a cruicial component of every "lesson".
For me it is really helpful to read and think about other participants' posts, seeing what works with their students and what objectives they write for the web pages.
Though now I am on holiday and do not have to teach classes, I got an assignement from my faculty to write lesson plans for the next year. This week we received the task to write technology enhanced lesson plan. I think such experience will only affect positively my professional development adding more possibilitied and elarge scope of knowledge. This is where I am now at the moment. I hope my students next year will feel the difference.
Each time growing and learning something new!
Dear Lilya:
ReplyDeleteThe ideas outlined in your post are very nice. I agree with on the temptation that technology arouse inside teachers.Soon we start saying "Next time I 'll be doing technology based lessons"
The question is : "Is it always possible ?"
In my country, the goverment launched an attempt to use techology based teaching and learning for the general textbooks availabe as national textbooks. Extensive efforts have and are being devoted for establishing and updating the "Eduwave" as portal for use at our schools.I tried it as a teacher and as a supervisor, very motivating to students , yet much work and preparation for the teacher. I think this is what Deborah was talking about in the next assignment :"A different lesson plan "
Is it easy for you at your faculty to do technology based lessons?
Yours
Hanan
Dear Liliya,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that Krajka's article published in the Internet TESL Journal (2000) is an excellent resource for teaching different writing genres. Not only does Krajka give a detailed guide on how to introduce each of the genres to students, but also gives a list of very useful sites that we can use for this purpose. His suggestion to teach each of the genres in one offline and one online lesson is especially practical.
Here I would only like to add that my Delicious network that consists of sites bookmarked by our course mates is equally valuable, bearing in mind that technology has made vast steps ahead since the aforementioned article was published.
All the best
Arjana
Dear Liliya,
ReplyDeleteI agree that we are a group of responsible teachers who are ready to help each other, share everything we think is useful and practical.
Asking and answering questions shows that we really want to learn as much as possible and try to create an excellent learning environment.
Yours,
Luiza
Dear Liliya ,
ReplyDeleteI am sure your and our students will see a difference in our new approach to English teaching. You know children are highly sensitive to changes .And we all hope that our new developing vision on using technology will be a huge benefit for our students.
Look at us as students under Deborah’s magic wand! I am still amazed about the Nicenet atmosphere! Vivid, challenging, respectful, resourceful, helpful, lively , relaxed …the perfect environment for learning !
Wouldn’t it be great if we could create something similar in our own classes?
Your colleague,
Camelia